The impact of liquor on the working class (with particular focus on the Western Cape) : the implications of the structure of the liquor industry and the role of the state in this regard

This thesis examines the role liquor has played in shaping both the rural and the urban 'Coloured' working class in the Western Cape. The dramatic events during the 1976 Soweto uprisings and the subsequent blatant and dramatic restructuring conveniently illustrate the complex interplay between the interests of liquor capital, the State, and the urban Black workforce. Furthermore, it exposed the blatancy with which liquor consumption was manipulated by the State to reproduce the work-force to the needs of capital in general. The Decriminalisation of shebeens, and the withdrawal of the State from overt liquor distribution, is seen as an attempt at co-optive strategies by which class stratification among urban Blacks is accelerated. A historical examination of the relationship between primary liquor capital (the wine farmers) and the State creates the context within which the contemporary role of liquor is explored. The power and influence of primary liquor capital has resulted in perennial over-production which of necessity had to be distributed through illicit channels. By a process of selective enforcement of liquor laws, the State has colluded with liquor capital to enable continued accumulation to take place. At the same time, this process co-opts the illicit distributors, the shebeeners of the Cape Flats, into an uneasy alliance in terms of which they assist in controlling the urban working class. In the rural context, the tot system forms part of coercive management, by which the agricultural labour force is kept underdeveloped, dependent, and both spatially and occupationally immobile. The processes of informal criminalisation and recriminalisation augment the control over the labour force achieved by the institutionalised administration of liquor.

Reference:

Schärf, W. 1984. The impact of liquor on the working class (with particular focus on the Western Cape) : the implications of the structure of the liquor industry and the role of the state in this regard. University of Cape Town.